I am in Switzerland and visiting my friends. I have spent almost a week in here and I like it so far after having been in Zurich, Lucern and Basel where I am right now. This small country with a population of roughly 7 million belongs to one of the richest countries in the world. Their system of direct democracy with many referendums in the 26 cantons(federal states) is one of the things that I have found to be very exciting.
20 % of the people are said to be having a migrant background in one way or the other, yet the issue of migration is a delicate one even in here as elsewhere in Babylon or Zion. My friend who has moved to Switzrland after having lived in Sweden for many years, tells me that he feels more at home in Switzerland than Sweden.
80 % of his friends are Swiss people while in Sweden he had no friend of ethnic Swedish background except for Peder who as a matter of fact is more Eritrean than the Eritrean president himself :-) This hard fact actually explains the attitude of people towards foreigners.
Integration is a mutual project where both the host and the guest give and take with the will to build a better society. Switzerland is not of course a success story and Sweden is not a failure either in this respect. The question is more complicated than that but I have got some understanding why my friend feels better in this part of Europe than the north.
3 kommentarer:
I can imagine that there is less racism in Switzerland then in Sweden.
Though aren't people Moore friendly to foreigners there only because they don't have any problems with immigration in Switzerland?
After what Ive heard most immigrants in Switzerland are quite rich, sons of presidents and so on.
Isn´t only because the immigration in Switzerland doesn't bather them in anyway that they are nicer?
If I'm not mistaken Switzerland is in many ways a quite conservative and in tolerate country. For example it was the last country in Europe to allow women to vote.
Racism exists in Switzerland as much as it does here in Sweden.People do not differ that much in their xenophobic attitude from one country to another that much, what is different is the way they ventilate these sentiments through the ballots or bullets.
I would say that switzerland might still be more conservative than Sweden in many respects.But conservatism, liberalism or socialism, whatever ideology is not immune to racism.
Your friend must have been very unfortunate. Even though xenophobic attitudes exists their is still much warmth. I think it's a matter like anything else. People act with their fear and not with their love and therefor we keep distance.
And I'm talking about personal fear not prejudgement and aggression.
Skicka en kommentar